When using, for example, a camera, to take pictures, bright areas of a scene may saturate one or more pixels on a sensor in the bright area of the picture. The pixels may not all saturate at the same brightness level. In a bright area, one pixel may saturate before other pixels around the saturated pixel. One pixel saturating before other pixels around the saturated pixel may sometimes occur with shared pixels. A shared pixel is a structure in which a part of a set of pixel transistors is shared by a plurality of pixels. With the shared pixel structure, a selection transistor, a reset transistor, and an amplification transistor may be shared, for example. The selection transistor, the reset transistor, and the amplification transistor may be shared in a plurality of pixels.
By using a shared pixel structure, an area of the pixel transistors, e.g., the selection transistor, the reset transistor, and the amplification transistor, may be arranged such that an area of each pixel may be decreased. For a shared pixel, there may be differences in saturation level between the pixels of the shared pixel structure. One example of a shared pixel structure that may include pixels having different saturation levels is the quincunx pixel structure. Another example shared pixel structure that may include pixels having different saturation levels is a quadruplet pixel structure.
Other structures may include pixels having different saturation levels. Furthermore, other non-shared pixel structures may also include pixels having different saturation levels. For example, a quadruplet pixel structure that is not also a shared pixel structure may include pixels having different saturation levels.